Voice to Text for Arthritis
Arthritis makes every keystroke a negotiation with pain. Some days your hands cooperate. Other days, even a short email feels like running a marathon with your fingers. Blurt removes typing from the equation entirely. Hold a button, speak your thoughts naturally, release. Text appears wherever your cursor is — emails, documents, messages, anywhere. No more forcing stiff, swollen joints through repetitive motions. Your ideas flow at the speed of speech, not the speed of pain.
The Typing Problem
Morning stiffness turns simple emails into obstacles
You wake up with hands that feel like they belong to someone else. Joints are swollen, fingers won't bend the way you need them to. That quick email you need to send before your 9 AM meeting becomes a 15-minute ordeal. Each keystroke reminds you of what used to be effortless. By the time you finish, you're exhausted and the day has barely started.
Flare-ups derail your productivity for days
You never know when a flare will hit. Yesterday you were typing fine. Today your wrists are on fire and your fingers feel three sizes too big. The work doesn't stop just because your hands did. You fall behind on emails, miss deadlines, and spend more energy managing pain than doing your actual job. The unpredictability is almost worse than the pain itself.
Colleagues don't understand why you're slow to respond
They see you typing slowly and assume you're distracted or unmotivated. They don't see the inflammation, the stiffness, the way each finger extension costs you. Explaining your condition gets exhausting. Some days you just push through the pain to avoid the conversation, making tomorrow's flare-up even worse.
Voice solutions feel clunky and unreliable
You've tried the built-in dictation on your Mac. It mishears you constantly, requires internet, and the delay between speaking and seeing text kills your train of thought. By the time you correct its mistakes, you might as well have typed it painfully yourself. The cure is almost as frustrating as the disease.
Your career feels threatened by your own body
You're good at what you do. You've spent years building expertise and reputation. But so much of modern work requires typing — emails, reports, Slack, documentation. You watch your output decline and wonder how long you can keep up. The fear of falling behind professionally adds stress that only makes the inflammation worse.
How It Works
Blurt works in every app on your Mac — email, Slack, Word, Google Docs, anywhere you can place a cursor. No special software integration needed.
Hold your hotkey
Press your chosen shortcut. A small indicator shows Blurt is listening. One keypress, not a typing marathon.
Speak naturally
Say what you want to type at your normal speaking pace. Blurt adds punctuation automatically. No special commands to memorize.
Release and done
Text appears at your cursor instantly. No copying, no pasting, no corrections. Your hands stay rested.
Real Scenarios
Writing emails without triggering a flare-up
You have 12 emails to respond to before lunch. Normally that would mean an hour of painful typing and wrists that ache for the rest of the day. With Blurt, you hold your hotkey, speak each response naturally, and release. Twelve emails done in 20 minutes. Your hands never touched the keyboard beyond that single button. No inflammation, no pain tax, no afternoon regret.
Getting through flare-up days productively
It's a bad day. Your fingers barely bend and your wrists throb with every movement. But you have a report due. Instead of calling in sick or pushing through agony, you dictate the entire report to Blurt. Two thousand words spoken in 15 minutes. Your hands rest while your mind works. The report gets done. You get through the day.
Keeping up with Slack and team messages
Team chat moves fast. Everyone expects quick replies. You used to dread the constant back-and-forth because each message meant more strain on already-painful joints. Now you hold, speak, release. Your responses fly as fast as anyone else's. Colleagues see an engaged team member, not someone struggling to keep up.
Writing longer documents and reports
That quarterly report isn't going to write itself. Ten pages of analysis, recommendations, and data interpretation. In the past, you'd spread it over multiple days to spare your hands. With Blurt, you speak your thoughts as they come. The document flows from your voice to the page. What used to be a week of painful typing becomes an afternoon of talking.
Responding to messages on mobile from your Mac
Someone texts you something that needs a thoughtful response. Typing on your phone is even worse than your keyboard — those tiny keys are torture on arthritic fingers. You pull up Messages on your Mac, hold your Blurt hotkey, speak your reply, and it sends. Full sentences, proper punctuation, zero finger strain.
Taking notes during meetings
You're in a video call and need to capture important points. Typing notes means looking away from the screen and straining your hands. With Blurt, you mute yourself briefly, speak your notes, and they appear in your document. You stay present in the meeting while your notes practically write themselves.
Maintaining your professional reputation
Your expertise hasn't diminished just because your joints have. With Blurt, you respond promptly, write thorough emails, and produce documentation at full speed. Colleagues and clients see the professional they've always known. Your condition stays private. Your career stays on track.
Why people with arthritis choose Blurt over built-in dictation
| Blurt | macOS Dictation | |
|---|---|---|
| Reliability | Consistent accuracy every time | Frequently mishears, requires corrections |
| Speed | Text appears in under 500ms | 2-3 second delay breaks your flow |
| Ease of use | One hotkey, hold and speak | Multiple clicks or voice commands to start |
| Error correction | Rarely needed, saves your hands | Constant fixes require more typing |
Frequently Asked Questions
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